We recently connected with Dr. Suki Stone and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Dr. Suki, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about how you got your first non-friend, non-family client. Paint the picture for us so we can feel the same excitement you felt on that day.
Taking a Risk By Suki Stone, Ph.D.
When I moved to Southern California in 1980, I thought, at last, I lived in a warm climate with no snow. Before my move, I received my master’s degree in special education in Wisconsin and began teaching children with learning disabilities. After receiving my degree, I taught for several years, but the freezing weather and snow were too uncomfortable. Although I was a new teacher in California, I had been teaching children for many years. The California district was similar to others where I worked but was more restrictive. I couldn’t use any material that wasn’t in the classroom.
During my time teaching children with learning disabilities, many suffered because the programs I was required to use were ineffective. I struggled to find programs in reading and math, but even when I was told I could use the classroom funds, the material was not feasible or workable.
Julie was a second grader who could not learn using reading materials in my room. Julie cried every day because she couldn’t complete any of the exercises or activities related to reading. She even broke all the pencils I gave her. I had to put a Kleenex box on her desk so she could blow her nose. I was so frustrated with her sadness and wanted to help her dearly. I wasn’t sure what direction I was going, but I knew Julie wouldn’t leave second grade without learning to read. I went home, prayed that I could help her, and asked the universe for guidance.
The next day, I entered class and threw all her materials on the floor. The children, including Julie, watched me and thought I had gone crazy. I often must be dramatic around the children because they like to react to my positive outlook on completing their work. Since Julie had a clean desk space, I sent her to my magazine corner to pick out several magazines. I told her to find pictures in the magazines of items she loved. She then cut them out and made a collage on a board. The pictures could be in any order. She got excited about the exercise. She had chosen about 20 pictures by the end of our class time. The first picture was of a bank. We discussed the concepts related to the bank (tellers, money, savings accounts, and checking accounts). I wrote each word on cards and had her read them holistically. We discussed the meaning and how it was applied to banking. I did not have her sound anything out, separate the syllables, or work on any phonic skills, which was more than frustrating for her.
As we moved to the next picture, Julie stopped me and said, “But Ms. Stone, there’s another kind of bank.” I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I answered, “What other kind of bank, Julie?” She replied, “When you go fishing, you sit on a bank.” Surprised, I asked her, “How do you know that?” Julie stated, “My father takes me fishing every weekend.” I had an AHA moment! At that very minute, I knew Julie’s knowledge would be the impetus for learning how to read. After the collage of pictures, I started Julie dictating a story about sitting on the bank catching fish with her dad.
As I contemplated, I knew the direction I wanted to go, designing my literacy program for Julie. At that moment, I wasn’t aware that it would become a program I would be using for other children, nor would I become an entrepreneur and start my own business. I just knew to ensure my program was well-grounded and admissible within educational research. I began researching what I was doing and having Julie learn to read. I spent all my free time doing research. There were 4 researchers whom I depended on to be foundational for my program and holistic developing structure. I needed to find a theory to anchor why the children and, later, the adults I taught were reading proficiently in 14 days or less. Even without my anchor research, I continued to work with Julie and other children in my class to become proficient readers.
Julie wrote twenty stories about her life, and at the end of the total, she was prepared to return to her second-grade class and read a story from the classroom book the children used. She brought me into her class as her “Show and Tell.” We all watched her reading. I had the teacher ask her questions at the end to be sure she comprehended the story. All the children in class stood up and gave her a standing ovation, clapping their hands and saying, “BRAVO!” Since Julie’s stories were personally related to her experiences, she was comfortable and successful learning the words and answering questions. I knew then Julie would be a reader. Reading to her classmates in the second-grade book of stories was a great accomplishment for her.
Even though I successfully taught Julie to read at her 2nd-grade level, the administration and Special Education department put boundaries around my decision-making and my efforts to continue helping the other children in my class. I knew there was more that I should be doing for the children, but I wasn’t given the autonomy to carry out my ideas. I spent time juggling my thoughts, going back and forth with ideas of incorporating the practices these children needed.
I questioned why I was still employed in a public school system and waited over 25 years to leave. My administration throughout my career was not prepared to give me any directives or guidance in teaching these very smart children who learned differently. The administrators were not required to provide classes for children with special education needs. Many of the principals were coaches for high school sports. Yet they told me what to do and which curriculum to use with the children in my class even though they had never attended a university class on the education of children with special needs.
I had an awakening that things would not change, but I wasn’t prepared to leave the children who needed me. Yet, I knew if I stayed, they would not receive the type of education I believed they should have. So, I prayed for the answer I needed to make the decision. My direction was guided to enroll in a Ph.D. degree with the future of becoming a professor. This position would give me more autonomy and decision-making with the university students I would teach. My thought was to teach groups of university students to become teachers for children with learning disabilities. I would have an opportunity to share my reading program so the children in their classrooms would have the proficient reading skills I knew they needed.
After receiving my Ph.D., I accepted a tenure-track position as an assistant professor in Brownsville, Texas. It seemed a good place since it didn’t snow, and the university’s president was a woman. It was twenty years ago, and there were very few female presidents of universities. What that meant to me was autonomy at last! I would have decision-making power and be able to be in charge. My position was Head of the Special Education Department. Although I had just finished my degree and knew that people worked for many years before becoming a department chair for many long years, I felt blessed. At that time, I was unaware of the restrictions put on me, even in my position. At that time, it wasn’t a risk in my life. I would have what I wanted and be able to teach teachers who would have a bonus learning my literacy program for their struggling children.
However, it didn’t work out that way. I presented a proposal for bringing my mentor, Dr. Paulo Freire, from Brazil to Texas through a grant to work with my teachers. I was told I couldn’t do that and that I couldn’t write a grant because no one could take over my courses. Even though the university had a grant writer on campus, I was told that no one could teach my classes, so that I couldn’t partake in any grant. Although this was my first position at a university, I was aware that grants bring money into universities, and they hire adjunct professors to fill in for full-time professors working with grant funding. I was disappointed and knew I couldn’t fulfill my vision of what I wanted to give my students. Therefore, I took a chance, not knowing what would happen, and resigned from my position at the university—taking a risk on what I would do when I returned to San Diego.
In San Diego, I took a leap of faith and began my journey as a literacy specialist entrepreneur. That was the biggest risk. I no longer had connections to a school district because I had been gone for nine years, and things had changed. I also thought, would I ever get paid to teach so I could have a legitimate business? While waiting for parents to call me after I advertised, I could instruct children with dyslexia to read in 14 days or less. I also signed up as an acting extra because I had opened my schedule and had no obligations. I loved that!
I was called for a six-week job as an extra on the Tiger Woods Story. A production company in San Diego was directing and producing the movie made for television. I didn’t have a speaking part, but I was part of the crowd. There was plenty of time to talk with the other extras in the movie. One day of shooting, I spent time with a man in the insurance business. I introduced myself, and he was fascinated that I could teach proficient reading skills in 14 days. He specifically asked, “What do you want?” I answered him that I would like to be financed. I gave him my business card, and he said he would look around and let me know if he met someone who would help me. I didn’t expect anything, and after the movie was completed, I never communicated with the gentleman. However, about 2 months later, he called me and said he was in a restaurant waiting for his client and started talking to this man who wanted to meet me because his grandson, who was in the fourth grade, couldn’t read. He would treat me to lunch to learn more about my program. I took a risk to meet this man.
I met Lyle a couple of days later and spent the afternoon discussing how I designed the program and how many children I taught. I didn’t expect much, but before we finished lunch, he said, “I want you to teach Kenny to read.” In addition, he asked if I had time to teach two of Kenny’s friends. All three boys lived in a group home for children with emotional disabilities. They also had the same Special Education teacher. This seemed promising to start my career as an entrepreneur. I didn’t realize what would happen beyond teaching those three boys at that time. I had to be fingerprinted again. That was a requirement to get my teaching certificate. However, the group home was private, and I had to fulfill additional requirements.
During my time with the boys, other situations became positive experiences. I taught three days a week, and their teacher called me several times to ask what I was doing. The boys had never behaved so well in class, not throwing things, had decreased tantrums, and were beginning to read aloud to her. She was their teacher since first grade. Every week, I also had comments from the women who were caretakers for the house. The boys didn’t get into as many fights with the other children while I worked on their reading sessions. At the end of the sessions, the boys showed improvement, which surprised Lyle. Kenny, his grandson, started to read a series of books on his favorite characters. He was also reading material of his interest on the web. Jose was a child who completely changed. The teacher told me she could not give him a book because he would tear up the book one page at a time. At the end of my sessions, he asked me to help him create a book cover for Charlotte’s Web, a book he wanted to take home to read from his class library. The teacher was so surprised that she called me accolades for how I changed his life. The third boy, Morris, could read all the directions to his Play Station and other games he wanted to play on television.
Lyle was not only surprised and fulfilled; he arranged a meeting with me and discussed the importance of how my business needed to become a nonprofit corporation so families who couldn’t afford my services could still help their children become readers. Lyle volunteered to sit on my board of directors. I was thrilled. But I also knew even with all the help I would be getting. It was still a risk I had to take. The questions in my mind were: how would I find the families who needed me? How would I earn a living teaching children whose families couldn’t pay me? Where would I find donors to help make tax-exempt donations? Even after twenty-two years of having a 501c3 nonprofit status, these questions apply.
I have been taking risks as an entrepreneur for more than twenty-two years. Even though the development of my company has had several changes, I am still taking risks because my vision and mission of changing the lives of smart children and adults who learn differently have been difficult to reach. I am blessed to have acquired the connections of 5 nonprofit organizations who want to collaborate with me and my organization. One specific organization focuses on foster children. I will locate funding to go to Georgia and hire a teacher who I will train to teach my Write Read Lead® literacy program. The children will have proficient reading skills in 14 days. However, continuity of their education is difficult for them because they frequently move around, not staying with one family. Since there are other unknown factors I cannot predict, again, I put myself in a risk-taking position. However, my concentration is teaching these children to be successful readers; I hope it’s worth the risk. Anything I can do to help these children overcome their inconsistency in learning and education overrides the risks I take.
I strongly believe in what I do and watch children and adults become proficient readers, living their dreams. Risk-taking is now my friend. I have a board member who is also my advisor, so we can discuss the type of risk I can take that has a positive outcome. Even though I am still asking the same questions I asked at the beginning of my journey, I still take that risk. As an entrepreneur in my specialized field, I have seen so much progress with my students that I have accepted taking risks is a way of life.
The children and adults are the teachers in my program. Since their personal knowledge is the impetus as they share life stories about their passions, I am guiding them to believe they will achieve proficiency and know they can teach themselves. They understand they are smart even though they learn differently. I think about Robert Frost’s poem Road Not Traveled because I have traveled in a different direction to help my students recognize their strengths. My reward for taking the risk is the joy they find in their moments of accomplishment. I kindle the spark they discover in themselves learning to read.
More information about my Write Read Lead program can be found at www.writereadlead.org
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Dr. Suki Stone is on a Mission to Teach Learning Disabled Children and Adults to Read
Dr. Stone is passionate about her position as a literacy advocate. Since she has spent the last 50 years teaching children with special education, Dr. Stone had no option, but to create an entirely new method to teach these forgotten children to read. She is creator and founder, of the Write Read Lead® program, a revolutionary system designed to teach writing, reading, spelling and comprehension to children and adults with learning disabilities, dyslexia or ADD. They achieve proficient reading skills in 14 days. Dr. Stone has a nonprofit corporation and collaborates with other nonprofits across the country.
Stone is also author of Rethink Reading Strategies a book published in 2018. Since receiving her Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University jointly with San Diego State University she has led a crusade to help LD children and adults recognize they are brilliant, passionate, and able to read independently. She begins with the writing process. Writing comes before reading. In addition the children are the teachers. Dr. Stone has a 98% success rate and most children are dismissed from their special education placements after just 14 sessions with her! Adults who complete the program fulfill their dreams by graduating from college or getting the position in business that they desire. In addition, they strive to be entrepreneurs.
If you know anyone, either a child or adult who learn differently and need Dr. Stone, she can be contacted at her website: www.writereadlead.org , email: [email protected] or by phone 858-487-7889. She is also looking for the generosity of angel benefactors who will donate to her organization to help children in foster care or families that who have parents that struggle with literacy and are not employable.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Funding My Business By Suki Stone, PhD.
In San Diego, I took a leap of faith and began my journey as a literacy specialist entrepreneur. That was the biggest risk. I no longer had connections to a school district because I had been gone for nine years, and things had changed. I also thought, would I ever get paid to teach so I could have a legitimate business? While waiting for parents to call me after I advertised, I could instruct children with dyslexia to read in 14 days or less. I also signed up as an acting extra because I had opened my schedule and had no obligations. I loved that!
I was called for a six-week job as an extra on the Tiger Woods Story. A production company in San Diego was directing and producing the movie made for television. I didn’t have a speaking part, but I was part of the crowd. There was plenty of time to talk with the other extras in the movie. One day of shooting, I spent time with a man in the insurance business. I introduced myself, and he was fascinated that I could teach proficient reading skills in 14 days. He specifically asked, “What do you want?” I answered him that I would like to be financed. I gave him my business card, and he said he would look around and let me know if he met someone who would help me. I didn’t expect anything, and after the movie was completed, I never communicated with the gentleman. However, about 2 months later, he called me and said he was in a restaurant waiting for his client and started talking to this man who wanted to meet me because his grandson, who was in the fourth grade, couldn’t read. He would treat me to lunch to learn more about my program. I took a risk to meet this man.
I met Lyle a couple of days later and spent the afternoon discussing how I designed the program and how many children I taught. I didn’t expect much, but before we finished lunch, he said, “I want you to teach Kenny to read.” In addition, he asked if I had time to teach two of Kenny’s friends. All three boys lived in a group home for children with emotional disabilities. They also had the same Special Education teacher. This seemed promising to start my career as an entrepreneur. I didn’t realize what would happen beyond teaching those three boys at that time. I had to be fingerprinted again. That was a requirement to get my teaching certificate. However, the group home was private, and I had to fulfill additional requirements.
During my time with the boys, other situations became positive experiences. I taught three days a week, and their teacher called me several times to ask what I was doing. The boys had never behaved so well in class, not throwing things, had decreased tantrums, and were beginning to read aloud to her. She was their teacher since first grade. Every week, I also had comments from the women who were caretakers for the house. The boys didn’t get into as many fights with the other children while I worked on their reading sessions. At the end of the sessions, the boys showed improvement, which surprised Lyle. Kenny, his grandson, started to read a series of books on his favorite characters. He was also reading material of his interest on the web. Jose was a child who completely changed. The teacher told me she could not give him a book because he would tear up the book one page at a time. At the end of my sessions, he asked me to help him create a book cover for Charlotte’s Web, a book he wanted to take home to read from his class library. The teacher was so surprised that she called me with accolades for how I changed his life. The third boy, Morris, could read all the directions to his Play Station and other games he wanted to play on television.
Lyle was not only surprised and fulfilled; he arranged a meeting with me and discussed the importance of how my business needed to become a nonprofit corporation so families who couldn’t afford my services could still help their children become readers. Lyle volunteered to sit on my board of directors. I was thrilled. But I also knew even with all the help I would be getting, it was still a risk I had to take. The questions in my mind were: how would I find the families who needed me? How would my income be consistent teaching children whose families couldn’t pay me? Where would I find donors to help make tax-exempt donations? Even after twenty-two years of having a 501c3 nonprofit status, these questions apply.
What happened was that Lyle became a member of my nonprofit Board of Directors and was responsible for funding my nonprofit. He would give me a donation and tell me to choose 2 or 3 children I knew needed an alternative approach to learning to read. He also contacted a few of his friends, and they donated to my nonprofit that Lyle helped set up. I wasn’t aware then, but Lyle was an angel benefactor. He believed in my program because I taught his grandson, Kenny, to read, and I taught two of Kenny’s friends who had fewer reading skills and became so talented that they received certificates from their school for the most improved children. Lyle also told me years later that Kenny could read high school material in middle school. He also was very forthcoming in telling me that the misbehavior and anger of all three children were changing. They learned how to control their emotions and were cooperative when confronted with arguments among classmates.
Lyle was very pleased with what I had accomplished teaching them proficient reading skills, but it had also changed them emotionally. After observing the changes in his grandson and the two additional boys, he wanted that to happen for other children and became a regular donor. He knew that the donations he gave were the income I earned. It was a pleasure and a blessing to have Lyle truly understand how the children changed their lives in addition to becoming independent readers.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
What helped Me Build My Reputation in the Education Market Space by Suki Stone, Ph.D.
As a special education teacher of children and adults with Learning Disabilities focusing on their difficulties with reading, I have a completely different approach to teaching reading. The philosophical perspective about reading and how children and adults learn to read has been generally focused on the phonics or phonemic approach. Both approaches emphasize the sounds of consonants and vowels, teaching children and adults that reading can’t be achieved without learning these bits and pieces. The children learn to read the words, but then they may not use the word correctly in a sentence because they can pronounce them but don’t know what the word means. The educators who embrace the sound/symbol relationship of letters understand that the meaning of the words they are learning within the contextual formation of a sentence is enough to overcome understanding the word and using it correctly.
Over my educational career as a teacher, professor, entrepreneur, and creator of my literacy program, I have been approached by parents who complain that their children can read but don’t understand the meaning of the sentences or the words they are reading. My research and experience have indicated that it is fine to create and develop new procedures, programs, and approaches to help raise the literacy rates of school-age children, but if we are using the same philosophy of how children learn and what we as reading teachers must do to help improve, the new programs, procedures, and curricula, will fall short of making the expected gains we are hoping to achieve. The basis for change is the need to look at how we believe children learn. I have said that parents do not teach their children to talk. Even researchers studying second-language learners or foreign-born children acknowledge that children learn to speak their native language by imitating their parents. Children listen, observe, and respond in kind. Reading instruction should be direct and child-centered, and the core standards should begin with the philosophy of how children learn.
We must consider paying closer attention to the paradigm that learning occurs within children as they react and respond to their environment, people, and activities. According to Thomas Kuhn (1970), we need a paradigm shift, which means a change in the basic assumptions of our belief system regarding how children learn. Jean Piaget, a researcher and philosopher, noted that his children’s development was based on how they played, reacted to people, and developed language. He structured his processes in a series of stages that educators still use today to explain children’s mental and physical development. Although we still use Piaget’s seminal work to model and watch our children’s growth, our world has definite changes. With constant evolving in technology, children have become smarter and more proficient in the education learning community. As a result of these changes, we also need to change our educational philosophy and adopt new processes, such as the constructivist approach, to deliver quality instruction. Constructivist teaching begins with a foundation for children to construct their own meaning of the material they read. They are active, not passive learners, contributing their knowledge to the subject matter. We must review the philosophy we used in the past to change the results. Accepting a new philosophy and rearranging how we deliver instruction is the foundation for the new programs. The underlying foundation helps bring about change.
It is important to understand the background of people’s philosophical differences as they are in decision-making positions for all of education. The problem with decision-makers is their lack of knowledge about children with special education needs. These children need to be taught individually based on their learning styles. Teachers are instructed to use materials that may or may not be equivalent to how the children learn. What has happened over the years is parents approach me and ask me specifically if I will do something different because they know their child isn’t learning using the required curriculum.
Since my educational background has changed significantly to address the various differences or learning styles of my students with special education needs, I have the support of parents who request a different approach for their child to learn to read. Parents are curious as well as excited that there is an alternative reading program available that will help their children learn to read proficiently. Although I do not get many referrals, I meet parents looking for an unconventional approach from school districts teaching something other than phonics or phonemic awareness.
Parents contact me wanting to know what I do that causes children to have success from the very first session. I explain that my philosophy about learning and children’s knowledge is the foundation of the practical application of proficient reading skills. I also have parents stay in the sessions to watch their children work with me and listen to their children share their knowledge with me.
Building a reputation, especially in education, can be a positive experience when people reach out and want something different. My philosophy is very different because I strongly believe and understand that children have their own opinions and can express themselves. We must think of all aspects of the child with special education needs, as well as the children in the general education classroom, and how all the children will relate to one another. Children with special education needs have an opinion and idea of what’s best for them. Even children who are non-verbal have a way of communicating their needs.
When I speak to parents or large groups of people searching for something different for their children, it is apparent that they are dissatisfied with their children’s education. As an educator for fifty years, I have not seen any breakthroughs or changes in how reading is taught. When the government instituted No Child Left Behind, there was no structure, no suggestions for change, and no funding to hire teachers for the government’s desired changes. I did have a few parents speak about my literacy program to a district, but everything was restricted, and parents were given the format they had to follow.
Because I have faced so many boundaries over the years, my decision as a literacy specialist and entrepreneur is to work with children and adults within other nonprofit organizations. That flexibility and limited restrictions have helped me build my reputation in the education market. I am helping children and adults succeed and surprise their teachers and bosses. I am doing what I know is right for the people who need to overcome their difficulties by using an alternative approach that changes lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.writereadlead.org
- Instagram: @writereadlead
- Facebook: Suki Stone
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-suki-stone-a8445934/
- Twitter: @drsuki
- Youtube: write read lead–the video is an intro presenting Dr. Suki Stone (not to be confused with read write to lead)
- Other: On the first page of my website people can read a digital copy of my Write Read Lead Magazine. I was on the radio with Sherita Herring October 11, 2023. Link is in my Linked-In account.
Image Credits
credit names clockwise for pictures Nicole Achartz Suki Stone Suki Stone Lisa Schulteis Barbara Cohen Geoff McLachlan